I'm not impressed by this kind of beyond the grave accusation. It's too easy to just settle scores with people you hate. Could you take this to court? I doubt it very much. If somebody isn't willing to say something when they were alive and subject to questioning then why would we believe them now? A fundamental principle of justice is the right to face your accuser. If the PSNI have evidence then they should act in it. Anything else is just so much bullshit.

I'm not impressed by this kind of beyond the grave accusation. It's too easy to just settle scores with people you hate. Could you take this to court? I doubt it very much. If somebody isn't willing to say something when they were alive and subject to questioning then why would we believe them now? A fundamental principle of justice is the right to face your accuser. If the PSNI have evidence then they should act in it. Anything else is just so much bullshit.

Good post.I made this point on one of the countless threads on this topic.

Former comrades who became bitter enemies which led to unsubstantiated claims which would never stand up in a court of law being made.

There should be a Truth commission to give all those who lost loved ones the chance for closure but it will never happen as too many murky secrets would be unearthed in the dirty war that was the conflict fought in the North.

I'm not impressed by this kind of beyond the grave accusation. It's too easy to just settle scores with people you hate. Could you take this to court? I doubt it very much. If somebody isn't willing to say something when they were alive and subject to questioning then why would we believe them now? A fundamental principle of justice is the right to face your accuser. If the PSNI have evidence then they should act in it. Anything else is just so much bullshit.

Dolours Price had the courage to say it while alive - she said that She said that Adams personally ordered the abduction of several 'traitors' in the 70s including Jean McConville.

As is well known by now, a Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) investigation in to the disappearance and death of Jean McConville in 1972 led in May last year to the serving of subpoenas by the U.S. Department of Justice on the Belfast Project oral history archive at Boston College. The subpoenas sought, inter alia, the interviews of Dolours Price, a former IRA activist from Belfast.

Lead IRA researcher Dr. Anthony McIntyre and myself have been fighting ever since to have the subpoenas dismissed in the courts on both sides of the Atlantic so as to protect the confidentiality and safety of the interviewees and of Dr McIntyre and to safeguard First Amendment rights in the United States.

Since last weekend there have been two media reports, one in the British-based Sunday Telegraph newspaper, the other on CBS television news, implying or suggesting that admissions by Dolours Price to them of involvement in the McConville disappearance were also made in her interviews for the Belfast Project. It was a similar claim two years ago that this admission had figured in her Belfast project interviews that began this saga of the Boston College subpoenas.

The Sunday Telegraph/CBS reports conflict with and contradict an affidavit I lodged in the Belfast High Court recently saying that the McConville disappearance did not figure in those interviews. I wish to address this matter in this statement and put it to rest for once and for all.

Throughout this stressful and taxing legal and political fight, my priority has always been to safeguard the confidentiality and interests of those who participated. That remains my priority. But I also have the responsibility to clarify and correct errors when they occur.

Quite a few years have passed since Dolours Price was interviewed as part of the Belfast Project at Boston College and it has been during these recent years that her health has deteriorated in a quite alarming way. Without dwelling on the distressing details, which are well known to those familiar with her history and have been published elsewhere, it has been evident to us that her grasp of past events has deteriorated in proportion to her increased susceptibility to outside suggestions.

It has long been our conviction that it was these factors that led in the first place to the serving of the subpoenas in 2011. A newspaper report in February 2010 carried the same erroneous implication that she had talked about the McConville disappearance in the Belfast Project interviews as was carried this week in the Sunday Telegraph and CBS. The first report led directly to the subpoenas, the second set have served to seemingly justify them. But both are wrong.

So let me once again put the matter on record, with all the strength and force I can muster: Dolours Price did not mention Jean McConville nor talk about what had happened to her in her interviews for the Belfast Project at Boston College.

Let me make another couple of points. The hue and cry that has followed the recent media reports demonstrates that the warnings we gave at the outset of this affair that these subpoenas, unless curbed, could have the potential to cause a crisis for the peace process in Northern Ireland were well-founded. Some thought us alarmist at the time but I doubt if many believe that now.

The demands that have been made this week for arrests or resignations have the potential to imperil the survival of the power-sharing administration in Belfast as anyone familiar with Northern Ireland's politics knows full well. They also have the potential to significantly increase the threat to the lives of those who took part in the project, not least the project’s IRA researcher, Dr. Anthony McIntyre.

That all this is happening is the direct consequence of the failure of political leaders to create a mechanism to deal honestly and without feelings of vengeance with the past, to address the needs of victims in a way that does not imperil the future. The need to rectify that failure is now urgent.

The media reports this week also demonstrate that if the PSNI wishes to investigate this matter there are and have been many other avenues they can pursue without raiding the Boston College archive, infringing American First Amendment rights and placing Dr McIntyre’s life in peril and his family in danger. The Belfast Project archive could and should remain confidential without any prejudice to law enforcement inquiries.

Furthermore it is evident from the recent media reports that Jean McConville was taken into the Irish Republic by the IRA and since her remains were found on the southern side of the Border, it is also reasonable to assume she was killed in that territory. Why then are the authorities in the Irish Republic allowing the PSNI free rein over an investigation to which they arguably have a superior jurisdictional claim? Perhaps a question to this effect could be addressed to the government in Dublin?

As is well known by now, a Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) investigation in to the disappearance and death of Jean McConville in 1972 led in May last year to the serving of subpoenas by the U.S. Department of Justice on the Belfast Project oral history archive at Boston College. The subpoenas sought, inter alia, the interviews of Dolours Price, a former IRA activist from Belfast.

Lead IRA researcher Dr. Anthony McIntyre and myself have been fighting ever since to have the subpoenas dismissed in the courts on both sides of the Atlantic so as to protect the confidentiality and safety of the interviewees and of Dr McIntyre and to safeguard First Amendment rights in the United States.

Since last weekend there have been two media reports, one in the British-based Sunday Telegraph newspaper, the other on CBS television news, implying or suggesting that admissions by Dolours Price to them of involvement in the McConville disappearance were also made in her interviews for the Belfast Project. It was a similar claim two years ago that this admission had figured in her Belfast project interviews that began this saga of the Boston College subpoenas.

The Sunday Telegraph/CBS reports conflict with and contradict an affidavit I lodged in the Belfast High Court recently saying that the McConville disappearance did not figure in those interviews. I wish to address this matter in this statement and put it to rest for once and for all.

Throughout this stressful and taxing legal and political fight, my priority has always been to safeguard the confidentiality and interests of those who participated. That remains my priority. But I also have the responsibility to clarify and correct errors when they occur.

Quite a few years have passed since Dolours Price was interviewed as part of the Belfast Project at Boston College and it has been during these recent years that her health has deteriorated in a quite alarming way. Without dwelling on the distressing details, which are well known to those familiar with her history and have been published elsewhere, it has been evident to us that her grasp of past events has deteriorated in proportion to her increased susceptibility to outside suggestions.

It has long been our conviction that it was these factors that led in the first place to the serving of the subpoenas in 2011. A newspaper report in February 2010 carried the same erroneous implication that she had talked about the McConville disappearance in the Belfast Project interviews as was carried this week in the Sunday Telegraph and CBS. The first report led directly to the subpoenas, the second set have served to seemingly justify them. But both are wrong.

So let me once again put the matter on record, with all the strength and force I can muster: Dolours Price did not mention Jean McConville nor talk about what had happened to her in her interviews for the Belfast Project at Boston College.

Let me make another couple of points. The hue and cry that has followed the recent media reports demonstrates that the warnings we gave at the outset of this affair that these subpoenas, unless curbed, could have the potential to cause a crisis for the peace process in Northern Ireland were well-founded. Some thought us alarmist at the time but I doubt if many believe that now.

The demands that have been made this week for arrests or resignations have the potential to imperil the survival of the power-sharing administration in Belfast as anyone familiar with Northern Ireland's politics knows full well. They also have the potential to significantly increase the threat to the lives of those who took part in the project, not least the project’s IRA researcher, Dr. Anthony McIntyre.

That all this is happening is the direct consequence of the failure of political leaders to create a mechanism to deal honestly and without feelings of vengeance with the past, to address the needs of victims in a way that does not imperil the future. The need to rectify that failure is now urgent.

The media reports this week also demonstrate that if the PSNI wishes to investigate this matter there are and have been many other avenues they can pursue without raiding the Boston College archive, infringing American First Amendment rights and placing Dr McIntyre’s life in peril and his family in danger. The Belfast Project archive could and should remain confidential without any prejudice to law enforcement inquiries.

Furthermore it is evident from the recent media reports that Jean McConville was taken into the Irish Republic by the IRA and since her remains were found on the southern side of the Border, it is also reasonable to assume she was killed in that territory. Why then are the authorities in the Irish Republic allowing the PSNI free rein over an investigation to which they arguably have a superior jurisdictional claim? Perhaps a question to this effect could be addressed to the government in Dublin?

”A convicted IRA bomber (Dolours Price) claimed that Adams had sanctioned a series of attacks on London in 1972, including the bombing of the Old Bailey, which killed one man and injured 200 more, according to the Telegraph.

Price has given a fresh series of interviews in which she makes claims about Adams, which she says are the same as she made in the tapes being sought by the police. The bomber, who served eight years in prison for playing a leading role in the Old Bailey bomb plot, alleged that:

Adams was her “Officer Commanding” in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA

He was involved in approving an IRA bombing campaign on mainland Britain and asked for people to volunteer for it, stating it would be a “hanging offence” if they were captured;

Adams ordered her to drive alleged informers across the border from Northern Ireland into the Republic, where they would later be executed.

Adams denies each of the allegations. A spokesman for Sinn Féin said last night: “The allegations purportedly made by Dolours Price are not new and have been vehemently denied by Mr Adams before. Mr Adams entirely rejects these unsubstantiated allegations

Price has agreed to be interviewed about what she told the Boston College researchers, and her claims of the contents of the tapes are published by The Sunday Telegraph today. They put her at odds with Ed Moloney, a documentary-maker who was commissioned to carry out the research for the college. Earlier this month, he issued a statement in which he claimed that there was no mention of Adams or Mrs McConville in Price’s testimony.

In a series of interviews at her home in a suburb of Dublin, she outlined what she said she told the researchers and outlined allegations about Adams being a key figure in the IRA during the early 1970s.

”A convicted IRA bomber (Dolours Price) claimed that Adams had sanctioned a series of attacks on London in 1972, including the bombing of the Old Bailey, which killed one man and injured 200 more, according to the Telegraph.

Price has given a fresh series of interviews in which she makes claims about Adams, which she says are the same as she made in the tapes being sought by the police. The bomber, who served eight years in prison for playing a leading role in the Old Bailey bomb plot, alleged that:

Adams was her “Officer Commanding” in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional IRA

He was involved in approving an IRA bombing campaign on mainland Britain and asked for people to volunteer for it, stating it would be a “hanging offence” if they were captured;

Adams ordered her to drive alleged informers across the border from Northern Ireland into the Republic, where they would later be executed.

Adams denies each of the allegations. A spokesman for Sinn Féin said last night: “The allegations purportedly made by Dolours Price are not new and have been vehemently denied by Mr Adams before. Mr Adams entirely rejects these unsubstantiated allegations

Price has agreed to be interviewed about what she told the Boston College researchers, and her claims of the contents of the tapes are published by The Sunday Telegraph today. They put her at odds with Ed Moloney, a documentary-maker who was commissioned to carry out the research for the college. Earlier this month, he issued a statement in which he claimed that there was no mention of Adams or Mrs McConville in Price’s testimony.

In a series of interviews at her home in a suburb of Dublin, she outlined what she said she told the researchers and outlined allegations about Adams being a key figure in the IRA during the early 1970s.

But would this not be her agenda to smear someone in this case Adam's who she sees as a traitor to Republican ideals.

Dolours Price made very serious allegations about Adams when she was alive. If they weren't true, why didn't Adams sue her? After all reputation is everything to a TD and prospective President of Ireland..

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